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What Can We Do?" Mom Asked Again. I Shrugged. But She Kept Asking, As If There Were Something She Could Do, Until I Just Kind Of Crawled Across The Couch Into Her Lap And My Dad Came Over And Held My Legs Really Tight And I Wrapped My Arms All The Way Around My Mom's Middle And They Held On To Me For Hours While The Tide Rolled In.

-John Green

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What Can We Do?"

John Green

...

What Can We Do?" Mom Asked Again. I Shrugged. But She Kept Asking, As If There Were Something She Could Do, Until I Just Kind Of Crawled Across The Couch Into Her Lap And My Dad Came Over And Held My Legs Really Tight And I Wrapped My Arms All The Way Around My Mom's Middle And They Held On To Me For Hours While The Tide Rolled In.

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You Had Been A Paper Boy To Me All These Years - Two Dimensions As A Character On The Page And Two Different, But Still Flat, Dimensions As A Person. But That Night You Turned Out To Be Real.

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But Monotony Doesn't Make For Painlessness.

On The Morning In Question, She Wore White Shorts And A Pink T-shirt That Featured A Green Dragon Breathing A Fire Of Orange Glitter. It Is Difficult To Explain How Awesome I Found This T-shirt At The Time.

She Said, "it's Not Life Or Death, The Labyrinth." "um, Okay. So What Is It?" "suffering," She Said. "doing Wrong And Having Wrong Things Happen To You. That's The Problem. Bolivar Was Talking About The Pain, Not About The Living Or Dying. How Do You Get Out Of The Labyrinth Of Suffering?... Nothing's Wrong. But There's Always Suffering, Pudge. Homework Or Malaria Or Having A Boyfriend Who Lives Far Away When There's A Good-looking Boy Lying Next To You. Suffering Is Universal. It's The One Thing Buddhists, Christians, And Muslims Are All Worried About."

I Feel Like I Might Start Crying And That I'm Going To Cry Pee.

You Can't Just Make Me Different And Then Leave. You Can't. You Can't Change Me And Make My Whole Life Centered Around You, Then Leave.

I Hope You Didn't Bring The Asian Kid Along Thinking He's A Computer Genius. Because I'm Not," Takumi Said.

Everybody Should Have True Love, And It Should Last At Least As Long As Your Life Does.

No Matter How Hard You Kick, No Matter How High You Get, You Can't Go All The Way Around.

That's Absolutely True, About The Eight Glasses A Day. There's No Reason Whatsoever To Drink Eight Glasses Of Water A Day Unless You, For Whatever Reason, Particularly Like The Taste Of Water. Most Experts Agree That Unless There's Something Horribly Wrong With You, You Should Just Drink Water Whenever You're - Get This - Thirsty.

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You Used," He Said, And Then Took A Sharp Breath, "to Call Me Augustus.

Finally, I Decided That The Proper Strategy Was To Stare Back. Boys Do Not Have A Monopoly On The Staring Business, After All. So I Looked Him Over And Soon It Was A Staring Contest. After A While The Boy Smiled, And Then Finally His Blue Eyes Glanced Away. When He Looked Back At Me, I Flicked My Eyebrows Up To Say, I Win. He Shrugged

You Could Hear The Wind In The Leaves, And On That Wind Traveled The Screams Of The Kids On The Playground In The Distance, Little Kids Figuring Out How To Be Alive, How To Navigate A World That Wasn't Made For Them By Navigating A Playground That Was.

I Liked That He Was A Tenured Professor In The Department Of Slightly Crooked Smiles With A Dual Appointments In The Department Of Having A Voice That Made My Skin Feel More Like Skin.

It's Not Life Or Death, The Labyrinth. Suffering. Doing Wrong And Having Wrong Things Happen To You.

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There Is A Part Of Her Greater Than The Sum Of Her Knowable Parts. And That Part Has To Go Somewhere, Because It Cannot Be Destroyed.

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Grief Does Not Change You. It Reveals You. And Herein Lies The Gift That Cannot Die. It Changes The Course Of Your Life Forever. If You Allow Yourself The Chance To Feel It For As Long As You Need To - Even If It Is For The Rest Of Your Life - You Will Be Guided By It. You Will Become Someone It Would Have Been Impossible For You To Be, And In This Way Your Loved One Lives On, In You

...kaitlyn Never Wore Open-toed Shoes On Account Of How She Hated Her Feet Because She Felt Her Second Toes Were Too Long, As If The Second Toe Was A Window Into The Soul Or Something.

Like, In General I Think People Have Very Complicated Reasons For Wanting Things, And We Often Have No Idea Whether We’re Actually Motivated By Altruism Or A Desire To Hook Up Or A Search For Answers Or What. I Always Get Annoyed When In Books Or Movies Characters Want Clear Things For Clear Reasons, Because My Experience Of Humanness Is That I Always Want Messy Things For Messy Reasons.

So She Became Impulsive, Scared By Her Inaction Into Perpetual Action.

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We Didn't Talk Much. But We Didn't Need To.

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I Didn't Even Know What The Feeling Was, Really, Just That There Was A Lot Of It.

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There Are Infinite Numbers Between 0 And 1.

When You Say Nasty Things About People, You Should Never Say The True Ones, Because You Can't Really Fully And Honestly Take Those Back.

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Falling In Love

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The Pleasure Of Remembering Had Been Taken From Me, Because There Was No Longer Anyone To Remember With. It Felt Like Losing Your Co-rememberer Meant Losing The Memory Itself, As If The Things We'd Done Were Less Real And Important Than They Had Been Hours Before.

I Hadn’t Read A Real Series Like That Since I Was A Kid, And It Was Exciting To Live Again In An Infinite Fiction.

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I Just Want You To Be Happy. If That’s With Me Or With Someone Else Or With Nobody. I Just Want You To Be Happy.

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Maybe 'okay' Will Be Our 'always

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If I Ever End Up Being The Kind Of Person Who Has One Kid And Seven Bedrooms. Do Me A Favor And Shoot Me.

I Do Love You And What Else Matters But That

I Always Wondered If There Was A Purpose To The Universe, If There Was A Plan, If There Was Some Sort Of Organizing Factor, Hopefully That I Played A Role In.

Maybe Our Favorite Quotations Say More About Us Than About The Stories And People We're Quoting.

I Will Play Out The String. I Will Not Betray Your Trust. I Will Find You.

We Need Never Be Hopeless Because We Can Never Be Irreperably Broken.

You Know Your Problem, Quentin? You Keep Expecting People Not To Be Themselves.

I Got My Wish, I Suppose. I Left My Scar.

Failing To Grapple With Complexity Actually Turns Out To Be A Pretty Bad Life Strategy.

My Inner Goddess Is Doing The Merengue With Some Salsa Moves.

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That Deep, Can-still-taste-her-in-my-mouth Sleep.

All At Once, I Couldn’t Figure Out Why I Was Methodically Tossing A Spherical Object Through A Toroidal Object. It Seemed Like The Stupidest Thing I Could Possibly Be Doing.

But When It Came Right Down To It, The Skin Of My Wrist Looked So White And Defensless That I Couldn't Do It. It Was As If What I Wanted To Kill Wasn't In That Skin Or The Thin Blue Pulse That Jumped Under My Thumb, But Somewhere Else, Deeper, More Secret, And A Whole Lot Harder To Get." I Know What She's Talking About. The Something Deeper And More Secret. It's Like Cracks Inside Of You. Like There Are These Fault Lines Where Things Don't Meet Up Right.

Moms Aren’t The Best Audience For Medication Humor.

You Can Say A Lot Of Bad Things About Tiny Cooper. I Know, Because I Have Said Them. But For A Guy Who Knows Absolutely Nothing About How To Conduct His Own Relationships, Tiny Cooper Is Kind Of Brilliant When It Comes To Dealing With Other People's Heartbreak. Tiny Is Like Some Gigantic Sponge Soaking Up The Pain Of Lost Love Everywhere He Goes.

How Will I Ever Get Out Of This Labyrinth!" To A Margin Note Written In Her Loop-heavy Cursive: Straight & Fast.

I Have An Augustus Waters Fetish.

Leaving Feels Too Good, Once You Leave.

The French Verb Aimer Has Two Meanings. And That’s Why He Liked Her, And Loved Her. She Spoke To Him In A Language That, No Matter How Hard You Studied It, Could Not Be Completely Understood.

Funerals...are For The Living.

It Always Happened Like This: He Would Look And Look For The Keys To Satan’s Hearse And Then Finally He’d Just Give Up And Say, “fine. I’ll Take The Fugging Bus,” And On His Way Out The Door, He’d See The Keys. Keys Show Up When You Reconcile Yourself To The Bus; Katherines Appear When You Start To Disbelieve The World Contains Another Katherine; And, Sure Enough, The Eureka Moment Arrived Just As He Began To Accept It Would Never Come.

They Belong To Their Readers Now, Which Is A Great Thing–because The Books Are More Powerful In The Hands Of My Readers Than They Could Ever Be In My Hands.

I'd Had Nearly Four Years Of Experience Looking At These Clocks, But Their Sluggishness Never Ceased To Surprise. If I Am Ever Told That I Have One Day To Live, I Will Head Straight To The Hallowed Halls Of Winter Park High School, Where A Day Has Been Known To Last A Thousand Years.

I Think Maybe The Reason I Have Spent Most Of My Life Being Afraid Is That I Have Been Trying To Prepare Myself To Train My Body For Real Fear When It Comes. But I Am Not Prepared.

We're Invisible. I've Never Been Here With Someone Else. It's Different Being Invisible With Someone.

Night Falls Fast. Today Is The Past.

It Is A Good Life, Hazel Grace.

Something Invisible Snapped Inside Her.

Colder By The Hour, More Dead With Every Breath.

Is That What Relationships Become? A Reduced Version Of The Hurt, Nothing Else Let In. It Was More Than That. I Know It Was More Than That.

She Has Enough Black Eyeliner On To Outline A Corpse, And Her Skin's So Pale She Looks Like She's Just Broken Dawn.

I Am In The Midst Of A Soliloquy! I Wrote This Out And Memorized It And If You Interrupt Me I Will Completely Screw It Up,' Augustus Interrupted. 'please To Be Eating Your Sandwich And Listening.

The Food Was So Good That With Each Passing Course, Our Conversation Devolved Further Into Fragmented Celebrations Of Its Deliciousness: 'i Want This Dragon Carrot Risotto To Become A Person So I Can Take It To Las Vegas And Marry It.

Nothing Was Happening, Really, But The Moment Was Thick With Mattering

You Can't Dingleberry That! That's A Flagrant Misuse Of The Dingleberry!

Leaving Feels Good And Pure Only When You Leave Something Important, Something That Mattered To You. Pulling Life Out By The Roots. But You Can't Do That Until Your Life Has Grown Roots.

You Matter As Much As The Things That Matter To You. And I Got So Backwards Trying To Matter To Him. All This Time, There Were Real Things To Care About: Real, Good People Who Care About Me, And This Place. It's So Easy To Get Stuck. You Just Get Caught In Being Something, Being Special Or Cool Or Whatever, To The Point Where You Don't Even Know Why You Need It; You Just Think You Do.

The Colonel Led All The Cheers. Cornbread!" He Screamed. Chicken!" The Crowd Responded. Rice!" Peas!" And Then, All Together: "we Got Higher Sats." Hip Hip Hip Hooray!" The Colonel Cried. You'll Be Workin' For Us Someday!

I'm Not Sure If I'm Depressed. I Mean, I'm Not Exactly Sad. But I'm Not Exactly Happy Either. I Can Laugh And Joke And Smile During The Day, But Sometimes When I'm Alone At Night I Forget How To Feel.

I'm Not Embarrassed By My Faith, And I'm Also Not Embarrassed By My Doubt.

Keys Show Up When You Reconcile Yourself To The Bus.

We Were Kissing. I Thought: This Is Good. I Thought: I Am Not Bad At This Kissing. Not Bad At All. I Thought: I Am Clearly The Greatest Kisser In The History Of The Universe. Suddenly She Laughed And Pulled Away From Me. She Wiggled A Hand Out Of Her Sleeping Bag And Wiped Her Face. "you Slobbered On My Nose," She Said, And Laughed

There Is No Best And No Worst, ...those Judgments Have No Real Meaning Because There Is Only What Is

He Lit A Cigarette And Handed It To Me. I Inhaled. Coughed. Wheezed. Gasped For Breath. Coughed Again. Considered Vomiting. Grabbed The Swinging Bench, Head Spinning, And Threw The Cigarette To The Ground And Stomped On It, Convinced My Great Perhaps Did Not Involve Cigarettes.

I Write About Broken People Who Need Other People In Order To Go On. But Those Are The Only Kind Of People I Know To Exist. We Are All Broken.

I Figured Something Out," He Said Aloud. "the Future Is Unpredictable." Hassan Said, "sometimes The Kafir Likes To Say Massively Obvious Things In A Really Profound Voice.

The Pure And Simple Truth Is Rarely Pure And Never Simple. What's A Boy To Do When Lies And Truth Are Both Sinful?

I Found Myself Thinking About President William Mckinley, The Third American President To Be Assassinated. He Lived For Several Days After He Was Shot, And Towards The End, His Wife Started Crying And Screaming, "i Want To Go Too! I Want To Go Too!" And With His Last Measure Of Strength, Mckinley Turned To Her And Spoke His Last Words: "we Are All Going.

I Realized That All My Life, My Values Were Based Upon Typical Middle-class American Values: Hard Work, Doing Good, Living Well, Owning Things, Following The Rules & Being The Best I Can Be... But God Clearly Says, "those Are Not My Values. I Value Justice, Mercy & Humility.

We Had To Forgive To Survive The Labyrinth

That Was The Worst Part About Having Cancer, Sometimes: The Physical Evidence Of Disease Separates You From Other People.

I Mean, If Hardee's Is Urban, I'm Not Sure I Want To See Rural.

I Don't See A Future Where We're All Taught By Robots. The Real Life, Physical Experience Of Being In A Classroom And Having Conversations With Knowledgeable People Is Immeasurably Valuable And Irreplaceable.

Don't Worry. Worry Is Useless. I Worried Anyway

I Smiled. She Smiled. I Believed The Smile.

Patients Are Almost Always Preceded By Their Parents, Because No Matter How Fast An Ambulance Can Drive, Terrified Parents Can Drive Faster.

Margo Says, "i Know What She's Talking About. The Something Deeper And More Secret. It's Like Cracks Inside Of You. Like There Are These Fault Lines Where Things Don't Meet Up Right.

I'm A Big Believer In Pairing Classics With Contemporary Literature, So Students Have The Opportunity To See That Literature Is Not A Cold, Dead Thing That Happened Once But Instead A Vibrant Mode Of Storytelling That's Been With Us A Long Time - And Will Be With Us, I Hope, For A Long Time To Come.

The Five Of Us Walking Confidently In A Row, I'd Never Felt Cooler. The Great Perhaps Was Upon Us, And We Were Invincible. The Plan May Have Had Faults, But We Did Not.

My Parents Always Liked It When I Cursed In Front Of Them. I Could See The Pleasure Of It In Their Faces. It Signified That I Trusted Them, That I Was Myself In Front Of Them.

I Don't Suppose I Can Wear The Flamingo Tie," He Said As He Pulled On Black Socks. "it's A Bit Festive, Given The Occasion," I Responded. "can't Wear It To The Opera," Said The Colonel, Almost Smiling. "can't Wear It To A Funeral. Can't Use It To Hang Myself. It's A Bit Useless, As Ties Go." I Gave Him A Tie.

The Consequences Of Being Un-cool Feel So Big That A Lot Of Times You End Of Not Finding Ways To Have Open And Honest Conversations.

It Is Not My Fault That My Parents Own The World's Largest Collection Of Black Santas.

And He Found Himself Thinking That Maybe Stories Don't Just Make Us Matter To Each Other - Maybe They're Also The Only Way To The Infinite Mattering He'd Been After For So Long.

I Think Inspiration Is Always Around; It's Just A Question Of Whether Or Not You're Noticing It.

That While The World Wasn't Built For Humans, We Were Built For The World.

Why Are Breakfast Foods Breakfast Foods?

I Liked Being A Person. I Wanted To Keep At It.

We Have This Weird Thing In The World Where You Don't Get Insulted For What You Do, You Get Insulted For Who You Are.

The Human Tongue Is Like Wasabi: It's Very Powerful, And Should Be Used Sparingly.

In General-like Not Just In Fiction But In Life-it Doesn't Work Out Well When Someone Imagines Someone Else As A Manic Pixie Dream Girl Or An Edward Cullen Or Anything Other Than A Full, Complex Human Being. That Said, While I've Tried To Reflect That In My Books, I Don't Think I've Always Succeeded, Because I Am Always Running Up Against My Own Insufficiencies And Biases Etc.

To Be Abandoned Like That! Shut Out When You Most Need To Be Loved.

If You Were To Go, And Hopefully Someday You Will, You Would See A Lot Of Paintings Of Dead People. You'd See Jesus On The Cross, And You'd See A Dude Get Stabbed In The Neck, And You'd See People Dying At Sea And In Battle And A Parade Of Martyrs. But Not. One. Single. Cancer. Kid. Nobody Biting It From The Plague Or Smallpox Or Yellow Fever Or Whatever, Because There Is No Glory In Illness. There Is No Meaning To It. There Is No Honor In Dying Of.

It's Total Bullshit," He Said. "the Whole Thing. Eighty Percent Survival Rate And He's In The Twenty Percent? Bullshit. He Was Such A Bright Kid. It's Bullshit. I Hate It. But It Was Sure A Privilege To Love Him, Huh?

Our Lives Are Composed Of A Finite Set Of Moments That We Choose How To Spend.

Cherish Every Moment

There Are Times When You Just Have To Let It All Out. All The Anger, All The Pain.

For A Moment, She Was Quiet. Then She Grabbed My Hand, Whispered, “run Run Run Run Run,” And Took Off, Pulling Me Behind Her.

Mental Health Days Only Exist For People Who Have The Luxury Of Saying 'i Don't Want To Deal With Things Today' And Then Can Take The Whole Day Off, While The Rest Of Us Are Stuck Fighting The Fights We Always Fight, With No One Really Caring One Way Or Another, Unless...

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